| CROAT RADIO HERCEG-BOSNA (18:00 hrs) | BH TV 1 (19:00 hrs) | FED TV (19:30 hrs) | RT RS (19:30 hrs) |
| Milosevic’s trial | EU assistance to BiH | New mass crypts | RS NA session halted |
| OHR’s assessment | Mikerevic on HR | Kljujic testimony | RS opposition on Coalition |
| Neretva company | EU control of HR | Investigation on Mandic | Labour issues in RS |
| Iraq | Mines in BiH | EC financial agreement | EU assistance to BiH |
| Oslobodjenje | Dokic – if Bosmal meets the requirement we will not issue a tender; Halilovic – trial postponed for 6 months; Kljuic – Milosevic offered me Western Herzegovina; |
| Dnevni Avaz | Terzic – Croatian government will not get a concession; A report on Cegar rejected; Biber on PIF affair – why is government hesitating with the revision? |
| Dnevni List | City Board of the SDA in Mostar breaks away from the HQ in Sarajevo – Tihic losing battles against ‘hawks’; Kljujic – Tudjman and Milosevic were dividing BiH |
| Vecernji List | Kljujic in The Hague – Milosevic offered me joining of Herzegovina and Croatia |
| Slobodna Dalmacija | Mostar – removal of illegal facilities from city streets: seven houses destroyed; The SDA left work on organization of Mostar; Unified Mostar – new name of grammar school ‘Friar Aleksa Santic’ |
| Glas Srpske | New splits between leadership and Steering Board of the ‘Srpske Poste’ – open competition for new plot |
| Nezavisne Novine | Agreement between the European Commission in BiH and BiH Council of Ministers signed – BiH receives assistance of 63 million Euro; Donald Hays, PDHR – an audit report on RS Telecom affairs still waiting; FBiH – electricity, water supply and phone lines disconnected to the Federation Army; Construction of the corridor 5C – everything depends on ‘Bosmal’ |
| Blic | Wheat has failed, price of bread will not go up; Mikerevic – the government does not have a magic wand for problems; BiH received 63 million euros from EU |
HR’s authorities | |
| New EU measures for the HR
| BHTV at 19:00 hrs by Angela Cvitanovic – in accordance with the new EU Constitution, the High Representative will have to report on its work not only to heads of states, but also to the European Parliament. Dieter Koch, a delegate in the European Parliament, announced the news during his visit to the Western-Herzegovina Canton (WHC) on Tuesday. “Information on the situation in BiH mainly come from the High Representative, and they look pink. I don’t believe that conditions here are as good as he presents them,” said Koch. The new EU Constitution extends the authority of its Parliament, and it also envisages the establishment of a group for relations with BiH. Along the lines, all measures taken by the High Representative, who is tasked to prepare BiH to join the EU, will be examined through ‘the lens’. During his five-day visit to BiH, Dieter Koch met with WHC officials, who presented him with tourist capacities in the region. Koch also stated that he wanted to become familiar with the BiH situation, learn more on how BiH spent its financial assets and how did it prepare to join the EU. Vecernji List pg. 4 ‘Ashdown sends rosy reports to Europe’ – “We have already had good experience with the countries similar to BiH and this experience should be applied in BiH. However, these countries did not have the HR or the IC ruling the country almost as absolutists. At first the idea was that the HR has a role of an advisor and that he withdraws as the time goes by,” said Koch. Asked to comment on his statement that the European Parliament was being informed one-sidedly, that the HR was submitting rather ‘rosy’ reports to the European Parliament and as to how the European Parliament would get a better insight in the real situation, Koch said: “I said that I will be a sort of your spokesperson, who would be posing your questions directly to the Parliament and the HR himself would get much more serious questions about the complete situation in the country.” |
| Mikerevic
| CRHB at 15:00 hrs – RS Prime Minister, Dragan Mikerevic, said that institutions and bodies in BiH should make decisions on their own and take responsibility for them and not the High Representative. “High Representative Paddy Asdown don’t need his powers right now. We have to decide how fast the changes will be, they have to fit us and not to be under made under pressure,” said Mikerevic. He understands that politicians can’t reach solutions sometimes, and there is possibility of certain damage in such cases. That’s when the High Representative should take action, but without making judgements. BHTV at 19:00 hrs by Boris Gagic – Mikerevic stated that by imposing laws and decisions HR Ashdown could slow down the process of the BiH integration into Europe. “It is not logical to impose solutions while it is a question whether these solutions could bring new conflicts. I assume that in future there would be no ethnic conflict in BiH, but economic interests have certainly grown in way in which we cannot accept the situation where we are supposed to deal with such complicated issue through a simple approach.” RTRS at 19:30 hrs – Mikerevic statement was the first thing on the last night’s RTRS, before the headlines. Mikerevic estimated that the High Representative at this time did not need all the powers he had and that the imposing of laws and decisions could have big consequences. “In BiH there must be a balance of interests, something that FBiH politicians have not understood yet. That is If Sarajevo was an administrative and political, Banja Luka should be economic and financial centre,” concluded Mikerevic. Avaz pg. 3 ‘BiH bodies should make decisions on their own’ – said that due to the possibility of the HR imposing decisions, there is a lack of desire to reach agreements amongst BiH authority reps. Dnevni List pg. 10 ‘Mikerevic: we have to pass decisions by ourselves, and not the OHR’ – carried the statement. Glas Srpske pg. 5 ‘Dancing to someone else’s tune’ – Mikerevic said that the Republika Srpska authorities have not ever asked anybody, including the HR, to impose decisions and laws. Oslobodjenje pg. 2 ‘BiH should make decision on its own’. |
| HR’s interview | Avaz pg. 2 ‘ESI report is factually unsustainable’ – carried an interview HR Ashdown gave to the BH Radio 1. Amongst other things, the HR stated that no one from the ESI spoke to people from the OHR or the BiH authorities, which is one of the reasons why the report was inaccurate. |
| NN editorial | Nezavisne Novine editorial by Josip Blazevic ‘Ashdown’s authorities’ – the author makes a reference to the Guardian assessment and reactions to it by many local and foreign politicians. He also mentions the statement by Dragan Mikerevic, who repeated yesterday some assessments from the European Stability Institute report. The author says that many local and foreign politicians and journalists have expressed their bad assessments regarding HR’s actions and decisions. And all these assessments, according to the author, come to three points – Ashdown’s enormous authorities weaken the BiH state, they discourage local political initiatives and political culture of dependency upon the international community. Unfortunately, such blanket statements, according to the author, serve only in daily political purposes of those making them. “Although Ashdown made many bad decisions in the past period (as his predecessors) and should be criticised in this regard, it still is too courageous to say that he has vast authorities or that BiH does not need the institution such as the OHR anymore.” |
Political Affairs | |
| SDA on Mostar Statute
| CRHB at 15:00 hrs – Mostar Deputy Mayor, Ljubo Beslic, hopes SDA leadership will reconsider decision to leave the Commission to create the Mostar City Statute. SDA members of the Commission consider their mandate over since they support the statute. Member of the Commission fro Creation of the Mostar City Statute Ilija Filipovic said the following. “We think this is a total obstruction of the work of the Commission. The creation of the statute by the IC, which would not suit any of the constituent peoples, suits to those who are running away from that responsibility. They are afraid to do something that is their task.” Vecernji List pg. 2 ‘Mostar has been divided for too long’ – reports that the SDA decided to withdraw from the work of the Mostar Commission 15 days before the Commission was to complete its work. According to VL, the decision by the SDA of Mostar comes after their claims that their proposal, according to which Mostar would be organized not only in six but in seven municipalities, was ignored. HDZ’s member in the Commission, Josip Merdzo, still believes the Commission will have a draft of the future Statute of Mostar ready by the end of July. “By leaving the Commission, the SDA sends a certain message and that does mean we will not continue working,” said Merdzo. |
| OHR reaction to SDA’s move | DL pg. 1 and 5 – a reaction by the OHR to the SDA Mostar leaving the Commission. “The decision of the local SDA in Mostar to avoid the participation in a difficult process only highlights the weaknesses in their arguments and the OHR expects the decision will be reviewed. If because of that the work of the Commission fails, it will be clear whose fault it is. We believe there must be a reconsideration of the decision,” said OHR Spokesperson, Oleg Milisic. |
| DL commentary | Dnevni List pg. 1 and 5 by Miso Relota – it was announced that the President of SDA, Sulejman Tihic, was supposed to visit Mostar today to talk to ‘disobedient’ members of the Mostar SDA, but according to DL’s sources the visit will be postponed at the last moment, ‘which means that he is losing battle against radical elements among his ranks’. DL goes on to say that Tihic is lobbying for changes of the BiH Constitution and in order to get the support, he needs to ‘sacrifice’ something. According to DL, Tihic was ready to greenlight Ashdown’s principles i.e. that Mostar becomes one unit of local self-government and prepared to remove Zijo Hadziomerovic and Fatima Leho, who have been labeled by the IC as main obstructionists of positive processes in Mostar, from all positions within the SDA. DL reckons that by withdrawing from the Commission, the City Board of the Mostar SDA was quicker. Finally, the author argues that the OHR’s ‘indecisiveness (or something else)’ is worrying and that in the light of recent events, the Mostar Commission will totally collapse. Relota believes the OHR should stop applying double standards towards Croats and Bosniaks calling on the OHR to sanction persons that have brought the work of the Commission into question and the President of the party (Tihic). |
| SDS leaves RS NA session | CRHB at 15:00 hrs – SDS deputies left Tuesday session of the RS National Assembly. They are dissatisfied with the failure of the Election Commission to verify mandates of two new deputies, after the High Representative removed mandates from Djojo Arsenovic and Dragomir Vasic. Three Serb Radical and three Pensioner’s Party deputies have supported SDS deputies. BHTV at 19:00 hrs by Zorica Lolic – An SNSD delegate, Krstan Simic, said that this ‘definitely showed that this Coalition didn’t work, that the RS was a hostage of the SDS and that the SDS was ready to put in question the RS NA because of two mandates.’ It is unknown when the RS NA session would continue. FTV at 19:30 hrs by Indira Sehic – soon after SDS reps left the session the same was done by PDP reps, after which RS NA Chair, Dragan Kalinic, stopped the session. RTRS at 19:30 hrs by Milan Trbojevic – President of the SDS caucus, Milan Topajic, said the BiH Election Commission did not respect a deadline outlined by the Law to verify mandates for new SDS delegates, adding that for that reason this party did not want to participate in the work of the Assembly. He said that their delegates would ‘attend the continuance of this session once mandates of two of their colleagues were verified in accordance with the Law’. Opposition politicians estimated this was a political move and an unjustified conflict with the OHR, which would cause unwanted consequences for the RS. Djevad Osmancevic from the Party for BiH stated that this caused a complex and difficult situation triggered political games. SDS delegate Dusan Stojicic stated that the session was expected to continue next week. Nezavisne Novine pg. 4 ‘The SDS left Republika Srpska National Assembly session’, Glas Srpske pg. 2 ‘From the beginning because of mandates’ – reported on the session. Blic pg. 7 ‘Assembly without quorum’. Vecernje Novosti pg. 21 reports that two removed deputies Djojo Arsenovic and Dragomir Vasic should be replaced by Cvijetin Nikolic from Brcko and Rodoljub Djukanovic from Bratunac. |
Economic Affairs | |
| OHR assessment
| CRHB at 15:00 hrs – BiH is involved in an uncertain race between poverty and prosperity democracy, which state mustn’t lose. That means there must be no further delays in the implementation of necessary reforms. That’s the OHR’s assessment, which is to be presented tomorrow by Deputy High Representative, Donald Hays, during his visit to Banja Luka. As OHR Spokesperson Vedran Persic stressed, it is not about a simple adoption of the new laws. The government must get rid of laws that are making business profitability harder, employ new workers and strengthen the export. The news reported in Avaz on pg. 4 ‘There must be no postponements in the implementation of reforms’. Dnevni List pg. 10 ‘BiH has to find way out from crises urgently’. |
| CARDS program | CRHB at 15:00 hrs – Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzic, and Head of the European Commission in BiH, Michael Humphreys, on Tuesday signed a financial agreement on the CARDS Program. The Program is worth 63 million Euros and will include projects related to democratic stabilisation, construction of administrative capacities, economic and social development, environment and natural resources as well as judiciary and internal affairs. BHTV at 19:00 hrs by Lejla Redzovic – “The largest part of this program, worth 19,5 million Euros, is designated for assisting the return process, reconstruction of houses and infrastructure, including the education facilities, water and electricity capacities,” said Humphreys. Terzic on the other hand stated that this assistance was not sufficient enough for the implementation of necessary reforms, adding that BiH had to stay in the focus of donors if it wanted to achieve both political and economic stability. FTV at 19:30 by Dzenana Zolota – “The amount of 63 million euro is minimal comparing to the reforms that we are planning to conduct in this year. We hope that the EC will reconsider the promises it has made in Thessalonica and accomplish them,” said Terzic. Humphreys emphasised that this financial agreement concerns only one third of the financial assistance for BiH for this year. RTRS at 19:30 hrs by Vanja Filipovic – Humphreys confirmed that EU ‘has no exit, but entry strategy in BiH’. Also reported in Avaz pg. 3 ‘The EU help worth 63 million Euro’. Nezavisne Novine pg. 1 & 3, Glas Srpske pg. 3 ‘Brussels counts 63 million’. Blic pg. 7 ‘Assistance of 63 million euros from EU’. Oslobodjenje pg. 3 ’63 million Euro help’. |
| 5C corridor concession | BHTV at 19:00 hrs by Lejla Redzovic – BiH can, but doesn’t have to issue an international tender to award a concession for the construction of the 5C corridor. For that to happen, the entire project documents have to be prepared, including the Feasibility Study, which would cost 300 million Euros. The Bosnian-Malaysian company Bosmal will devise the Study. However, that is not a guaranty that they would win the concession, even though Chairman of the BiH CoM, Adnan Terzic, stated that in that case this company had the biggest chances. “The Law on Concessions leaves the possibility of a self-initiative offer and that is all up to the Commission on Concession, which we need to establish, in order to finalize the entire procedure,” said Terzic adding “in case ‘Bosmal’ does all this, then we can look at their offer as self-initiated and therefore there would be no necessity for an international tender.” FTV at 19:30 hrs by Zeljko Tica – According to BiH Minister of Communications and Traffic, Branko Dokic, the willingness of Croatia to help building the 5C corridor additionally strengths the intension of building the highway through BiH. Dokic thinks it was a very good thing that they had Croatia as an option, in case the plan of solving the issue through the concessions turned out to be unsuccessful. Nezavisne Novine pg. 1 and 2 – Terzic yesterday stated that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot, at the moment, meet requirements necessary to apply for the international competition for the construction of the highway. Oslobodjenje pg. 1, 4 and 5 – Dokic stated that if BiH decided to close a deal with ‘Bosmal’ then no public tender for the election of a concessionaire, that Croatian PM Racan is insisting on, would be issued. He also added that Croatian delegation, unlike Bosmal, never announced they would ensure money for the preparation works. |
| Interview with Terzic | Avaz pg. 1 and 5 – the key subject of the interview was the recent offer by the Croatian government to get involve dint eh construction of the 5C corridor. According to Terzic, BiH would not object if certain companies from Croatia requested concession, but no the Croatian government, as it would have a touch of colonial relationship. As for the Ploce port, Terzic stated that he believed that this time they solved the issue, as the port only had a perspective as a joint project of BiH and Croatia. |
| Interview with Hays | Nezavisne Novine pg. 1 & 5 – in an interview to NN, PDHR Donald Hays, said that many years would pass before the privatisation of the electro-power system in BiH commences. He stressed that he still cannot make any reference to the audit report into the Republika Srpska Telecom, nor the audit report into two other telecom operators in BiH. He noted that the OHR would present the reports in public when reports for all three operators were finalised. According to NN inset, Hays said that the Bulldozer has become a solution for all problems in BiH. |
Police Affairs | |
| EUPM
| CRHB at 15:00 hrs – the EUPM assist the local police in implementation of a new wider approach to fight trafficking and sexual crimes. EUPM Spokesperson, Alun Roberts, said that the new approach means the collection of data and monitoring locations prior to police raids. |
| Cegar case | Avaz pg. 1 and 2 – FBiH HoR Commission for Defence and Security yesterday rejected a report by the FBiH MoI internal control on the Cegar case. The Commission further forwarded a request to Minister Mevludin Halilovic to undertake certain measures within his authorities. Asked whether this meant it was requested from Halilovic to remove Cegar, Commission President, Sead Delic, said that he personally thought the person that violated the law and insulted people on national grounds should not be kept in such a responsible police post. |